Category: Quotes

The Wildest Being in Existence

Idolatry always reduces to the worship of something “made with hands,” something confined within the terms of human work and human comprehension. Thus, Solomon and Saint Paul both insisted on the largeness and the at-largeness of God, setting Him free, so to speak, from ideas about Him. He is not to be fenced in, under human control, like some domestic creature; He is the wildest being in existence. The presence of His spirit in us is our wildness, our oneness with the wilderness of Creation. That is why subduing the things of nature to human purposes is so dangerous and why it so often results in evil, in separation and desecration. It is why the poets of our tradition so often have given nature the role not only of mother or grandmother but of the highest earthly teacher and judge, a figure of mystery and great power. Jesus’ own specifications for his church have nothing at all to do with masonry and carpentry but only with people; his church is “where two or three are gathered together in my name.”

-Wendell Berry, Christianity and the Survival of Creation

The dangers of an unchecked Pursuit of Happiness

In this world, gratitude to the past and obligations to the future are replaced by a nearly universal pursuit of immediate gratification: culture, rather than imparting the wisdom and experience of the past so as to cultivate virtues of self-restraint and civility, becomes synonymous with hedonic titillation, visceral crudeness, and distraction, all oriented toward promoting consumption, appetite and detachment. As a result, superficially self-maximizing, socially destructive behaviors begin to dominate society.

Why Liberalism Failed, by Patrick J. Deneen, pg 39

Playing Revolutionary

Of course, we may “play” revolutionary and delude ourselves that we can do battle against the atomic bomb. Usually when the reality of the political situation dawns upon the oppressed, those who have no vision from another world tend to give up in despair. But those who have heard about the coming of the Lord Jesus and have a vision of crossing on the other side of Jordan are not terribly disturbed about what happens in Washington D.C., at least not to the extent that their true humanity is dependent on the political perspective of government officials. To be sure, they know that they must struggle to realize justice in this world. But their struggle for justice is directly related to the coming judgment of Jesus. His coming presence requires that we not make any historical struggle an end in itself. We struggle because it is a sign of Jesus’ presence with us and of his coming presence to redeem all humanity. His future coming therefore is the key to the power of our struggle.

-Dr. James Cone, God of the Oppressed, pg. 132

These words of Dr. Cone really showcase where my head is at recently politically and theologically. Things seem really, really bad, because they are. We are in a political moment unlike any other in our history, one that is dangerous and destabilizing. The future feels immensely less certain than it did two years ago.

But despair is not the attitude of the Church and those of us in it, those of us defined as Christians. The vagaries of politics and world affairs do not define our hope, nor do they determine the future we know is guaranteed. And, crucially, they do not set the terms of engagement. Christ does. As Dr. Cone says, we struggle because we know God, not because of anything less.

Things are bad. God is bigger than it anyways. Keep up the fight, but remember, the end is already written in our favor, in humanity’s favor, despite our best attempts to fuck it up (and we are certainly doing our best at that recently.)

And remember: we aren’t called to play revolutionary. We are called to be disciples. In all your work in the world, don’t forget that, and don’t forget the potential of the Church to craft disciples.